UNIVERSITY OF MALTA
SECONDARY EDUCATION CERTIFICATE EXAMINATION
SPANISH
MAY 2016
EXAMINERS’ REPORT
MATRICULATION AND SECONDARY EDUCATION CERTIFICATE
EXAMINATIONS’ BOARD
SEC EXAMINERS’ REPORT MAY 2016
SEC Spanish
May 2016 Session
Examiners’ Report
The following table outlines the distribution of the grades of the candidates sitting for SEC Spanish:
Table 1: Candidates’ distribution of grades
GRADE
PAPER A
PAPER B
TOTAL
% OF TOTAL
1
20
20
5.70
2
46
46
13.11
3
55
55
15.67
4
52
13
65
18.52
5
33
17
50
14.25
6
7
13
13
3.70
23
23
6.55
U
33
37
70
19.94
ABS
3
6
9
2.56
TOTAL
242
109
351
100
Paper I – Part 1 Listening Comprehension
The long and short listening comprehension passages were presented to the candidates in recorded
format. Once again the candidates performed better in the listening comprehension than in most of the
other components of the exam. The topic for the long text was ‘La Piñata’, a popular growing trend in the
West, especially with young people. The short text was about the enormous statues in ‘La isla de
Pascua’. Knowledge of another Romance language helps candidates with understanding the text and
lifting the correct answer due to the many lexical cognates present such as the following words which
formed part of or suggested the correct answers: regalos, originarias, año nuevo, primavera,
evangelizar in the long text and forma parte, cultura ancestral, grande, la costa, misterio in the short
text.
Paper I – Part 2
With respect to the grammar questions, the most common errors were made in questions 3, 4 and 10.
Question 3 tested knowledge of the simple present tense in the 3rd person. Candidates had to know the
meaning of the common adverb ‘Actualmente’. Question 4 tested knowledge of the preposition por
which is clearly described in the syllabus. Many candidates wrongly selected the conjunction porque.
Question 10 was related to time. Candidates had to select the definite article in the plural ‘las’ to
complete the sentence ‘ las ocho de la mañana.’ This common rule is delineated in the syllabus as
follows: 12. Time and expressions of time and day in both present and past tense: Es la una, son las dos
de la tarde.
The candidates fared well in the short cultural component.
The candidates’ performance in the gap-filling exercise was similar to last year. A word bank was
provided with two extraneous words as in previous years. Once again in this exercise many candidates
demonstrated improved understanding skills and use of different parts of speech, and generally filled in
the blanks with the words given correctly.
Papers 2A and 2B
Reading Comprehension: Performance in both papers was fair. The topic for both levels was La ciencia
de los idiomas. Candidates need to take time to understand and digest the question before attempting
to answer. Most responses were incorrect. Difficulties also arose when answers had to be inferred. In
both Paper 2A and 2B, the question asking candidates to express their opinion seemed to have caused
difficulty . The word ‘monolingües’ included in the question seemed to have confused some candidates.
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SEC EXAMINERS’ REPORT MAY 2016
Essay Task: There was a slight improvement this year in the essays. Most candidates sitting for Paper A
chose the first title which was descriptive. A substantial number of candidates wrote about essay title
number 2 or essay title number 4. The majority of the Paper B candidates selected the second title but
many also chose to describe the pictures given. Hardly any candidates opted for the first title. There was
an overall improvement on the effort of writing the minimum number of words. However, there were
several spelling mistakes when cognates were employed. There were some problems with syntax as in
lack of agreement of person, adjective, gender, verb, for example: ‘Nuestra vidas será más facil’, ‘este
son ejemplos’, ‘un mujer’ amongst many others. Compared to previous years, this year there were less
essays which employed English, Italian and/or French vocabulary.
Guided dialogue: Most candidates understood the dialogue and completed it sensibly and without
difficulty. Grammatical mistakes were still minimally penalised.
General Comments
Most candidates are very capable of understanding the texts when engaged in the listening task and are
capable of finding the correct answer out of the choices given. When candidates come to actual
production in the conversation in Paper 1 and in writing in Paper 2, there is a lack of study preparation.
With more intense revision and better concentration, more creativity in production in the aforementioned
exercises should be seen. It is strongly recommended that candidates go through the syllabus carefully in
order to be prepared for this examination.
Chairperson
2016 Examination Panel
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